This was not merely from the natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the surprise with which I was regarded as a man living of his own free will in Le Monastier, when he might just as well have lived anywhere else in this big world it arose a good deal from my projected excursion southward through the Cevennes. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-point every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the stranger. Except for business purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid aside even the civility of speech. There are adherents of each of the four French parties-Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and Republicans-in this little mountain-town and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calumniate each other.
Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled political dissension. Place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine days. Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?
He masters by his devices the tenant of the fields. Many are the mighty things, and nought is more mighty than man…. The Donkey, the Pack, and the Pack-Saddle Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends? And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign myself affectionately yours, Yet though the letter is directed to all, we have an old and kindly custom of addressing it on the outside to one. The public is but a generous patron who defrays the postage. They alone take his meaning they find private messages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude, dropped for them in every corner. They keep us worthy of ourselves and when we are alone, we are only nearer to the absent.Įvery book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends of him who writes it.
He is a fortunate voyager who finds many. But we are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world-all, too, travellers with a donkey: and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. After an uncouth beginning, I had the best of luck to the end. The journey which this little book is to describe was very agreeable and fortunate for me. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher, which may be requested at (paperback) Kegan Paul & Co., Londonīiographical Timeline © 2023 Warbler PressĪll rights reserved. Stevenson_Travels_cover_half-o.jpg Travels with a Donkey in the CÉvennes Travels with a Donkey in the CÉvennes Robert Louis Stevensonįirst published in 1897 by C.
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